1st RfD: Mass-deletion of moderated groups without a moderator

[Big-8 Management Board]

REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the following
101 moderated newsgroups.


RATIONALE:

Currently, those groups cannot be used for discussion because of the
lack of a moderator. Most of those groups haven't had a moderator for
a long time and have been unused for years. We consider it unlikely
that they will ever be revived with a new moderator. Nonetheless,
anyone interested in becoming a moderator for a group listed in this
RFD is invited to contact the Big-8 Management Board.


DISTRIBUTION:

news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
news.groups

Because of the magnitude of the group list, this proposal is not
cross-posted to target groups. In the course of these proceedings the
Board will post pointers to this announcement to appropriate
groups. Readers are encouraged to take the initiative and spread the
message.


PROCEDURE:

The procedure shall take at least 8 weeks, with announcements posted
every 4 weeks: 1st RFD, 2nd RFD, and Last Call for Comments (LCC). The
group lists may be revised during this stage and additional RFDs
posted as necessary. Discussion about candidate groups should take
place in the moderated group news.groups.proposals. After publication
of the LCC, the Board will vote. If there are specific reasons to vote
individually for some groups, the Board will do, but the default will
be a ballot covering all groups.

More details can be found here:

https://www.big-8.org/wiki/Mass_removal_of_groups


NEWSGROUP LINES:

comp.binaries.cbm For the transfer of 8bit Commodore binaries.
(Moderated)
comp.doc.techreports Lists of technical reports. (Moderated)
comp.internet.library Discussing electronic libraries. (Moderated)
comp.lang.c.moderated The C programming language. (Moderated)
comp.newprod Announcements of new products of interest.
(Moderated)
comp.org.cauce The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial
E-Mail. (Moderated)
comp.robotics.research Academic, government & industry research in
robotics. (Moderated)
comp.simulation Simulation methods, problems, uses. (Moderated)
comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica Mathematica discussion group. (Moderated)
comp.sources.games Postings of recreational software. (Moderated)
comp.std.announce Announcements about standards activities.
(Moderated)
comp.sys.amiga.announce Announcements about the Amiga. (Moderated)
comp.sys.sun.announce Sun announcements and Sunergy mailings. (Moderated)
humanities.philosophy.objectivism The ideas of Ayn Rand. (Moderated)
misc.activism.progressive Information for Progressive activists.
(Moderated)
misc.business.consulting The business of consulting. (Moderated)
misc.business.marketing.moderated Roundtable for marketing topics.
(Moderated)
misc.business.moderated Roundtable for general business topics. (Moderated)
misc.entrepreneurs.moderated Entrepreneur/business topics. (Moderated)
misc.invest.financial-plan Financial planning in general. (Moderated)
misc.transport.air-industry Airlines, airports, commercial aircraft.
(Moderated)
misc.writing.screenplays.moderated Craft/business of screenwriting.
(Moderated)
news.admin.net-abuse.policy Discussion of net abuse policy. (Moderated)
news.announce.conferences Calls for papers and conferences.
(Moderated)
rec.arts.anime.creative Original works by fans, related to anime/manga.
(Moderated)
rec.arts.anime.info Announcements about Japanese animation. (Moderated)
rec.arts.ascii ASCII art, info on archives, art, & artists.
(Moderated)
rec.arts.drwho.moderated Discussion of "Doctor Who". (Moderated)
rec.arts.erotica Erotic fiction and verse. (Moderated)
rec.arts.movies.erotica Aspects of erotic films and videos. (Moderated)
rec.arts.movies.reviews Reviews of movies. (Moderated)
rec.arts.sf.announce Major announcements of the SF world. (Moderated)
rec.arts.sf.starwars.info General information pertaining to Star
Wars. (Moderated)
rec.autos.sport.f1.moderated Discussion of Formula One racing.
(Moderated)
rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and Stockcar Racing.
(Moderated)
rec.boats.marketplace Boating products for sale and wanted. (Moderated)
rec.crafts.jewelry Jewelry making and gemology. (Moderated)
rec.drugs.announce Announcements about drugs and related issues.
(Moderated)
rec.food.cuisine.jewish All matters concerning Jewish cuisine. (Moderated)
rec.food.recipes Recipes for interesting food and drink. (Moderated)
rec.gardens.ecosystems Ecosystems and organic gardening. (Moderated)
rec.humor.funny Jokes that are funny (in the moderator's
opinion). (Moderated)
rec.humor.funny.reruns Reposts of rec.humor.funny archive material.
(Moderated)
rec.martial-arts.moderated Martial-arts in general. (Moderated)
rec.music.beatles.info Latest press notes about the Beatles. (Moderated)
rec.music.beatles.moderated Fab Four analytical & investigative
articles. (Moderated)
rec.music.gaffa Discussion of Kate Bush & other alternative
music. (Moderated)
rec.music.info News and announcements on musical topics.
(Moderated)
rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature Guitar tablature and
performance. (Moderated)
rec.music.promotional Information and promo materials from record
companies. (Moderated)
rec.music.reviews Reviews of music of all genres and mediums.
(Moderated)
rec.pets.dogs.info General information and FAQs posted here.
(Moderated)
rec.pets.ferrets Forum on ferret care and husbandry. (Moderated)
rec.photo.moderated The art and science of photography. (Moderated)
rec.skiing.alpine.moderated Alpine (downhill) skiing. (Moderated)
rec.skiing.announce FAQ, competition results, automated snow
reports. (Moderated)
sci.aeronautics The science of aeronautics & related technology.
(Moderated)
sci.archaeology.moderated All aspects of archaeology. (Moderated)
sci.bio.evolution Discussions of evolutionary biology. (Moderated)
sci.bio.phytopathology All aspects of plant diseases and pests. (Moderated)
sci.chem.organic.synthesis Synthetic organic chemistry related
topics. (Moderated)
sci.econ.research Research in all fields of economics. (Moderated)
sci.med.orthopedics Orthopedic Surgery, related issues and
management. (Moderated)
sci.military.moderated Military technology. (Moderated)
sci.nanotech Self-reproducing molecular-scale machines.
(Moderated)
sci.physics.foundations Fundamental and philosophical physics. (Moderated)
sci.physics.strings String theory and related fields. (Moderated)
sci.space.moderated Discussions about space related topics. (Moderated)
sci.space.news Announcements of space-related news items.
(Moderated)
soc.adoption.adoptees Discussion of adoption by adoptees. (Moderated)
soc.atheism Living as an atheist and atheism in society.
(Moderated)
soc.culture.african.american.moderated African-American perspectives.
(Moderated)
soc.culture.basque Basque culture and related issues. (Moderated)
soc.culture.belarus All things about Belarus. (Moderated)
soc.culture.hawaii Aloha kakou, E KOMO MAI! Eh, no forget hemo da
shoes. (Moderated)
soc.culture.indian.goa About Goa, India's smallest state. (Moderated)
soc.culture.jewish.parenting Issues about raising Jewish children.
(Moderated)
soc.culture.kuwait.moderated Kuwaiti culture, society, and history.
(Moderated)
soc.culture.turkish.moderated Issues related to Turks/Turkey. (Moderated)
soc.feminism Discussion of feminism & feminist issues.
(Moderated)
soc.genealogy.african Genealogy of Africa and the African Diaspora.
(Moderated)
soc.genealogy.surnames.britain Surnames queries - Great Britain.
(Moderated)
soc.genealogy.surnames.canada Surnames queries - Canada. (Moderated)
soc.genealogy.surnames.german Surnames queries - German speaking
countries. (Moderated)
soc.genealogy.surnames.global Surnames queries central database.
(Moderated)
soc.genealogy.surnames.misc Surnames - regions not covered
elsewhere. (Moderated)
soc.genealogy.surnames.usa Surnames queries - USA. (Moderated)
soc.history.moderated All aspects of history. (Moderated)
soc.personals Personal ads -- people in search of (ISO)
others. (Moderated)
soc.politics Political problems, systems, solutions. (Moderated)
soc.politics.marxism Karl Marx and his legacy in theory and practice.
(Moderated)
soc.religion.asatru Following the Gods and Goddesses of Northern
Europe. (Moderated)
soc.religion.bahai Discussion of the Baha'i Faith. (Moderated)
soc.religion.hindu Discussion about the Hindu dharma, philosophy,
culture. (Moderated)
soc.religion.mormon The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
(Moderated)
soc.religion.paganism Networking for Pagans. (Moderated)
soc.religion.unitarian-univ Unitarian-Universalism & non-creedal
religions. (Moderated)
soc.sexuality.spanking Adult sexual spanking. (Moderated)
soc.support.fat-acceptance.moderated Self-acceptance for fat people.
(Moderated)
soc.support.loneliness Mutual help and chat for those of us who feel
alone. (Moderated)
soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi Gay youths helping each other.
(Moderated)


If you have any objections, please make them heard in moderated group
news.groups.proposals. The "Followup-To:" header is set on this message,
so simply replying to this post should do the right thing.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Post by Big-8 Management Board
REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the following
101 moderated newsgroups.
Currently, those groups cannot be used for discussion because of the
lack of a moderator. Most of those groups haven't had a moderator for
a long time and have been unused for years.

How are you determining "haven't had a moderator for a long time"?
At least rec.arts.movies.reviews hasn't been "unused for years".

Post by Big-8 Management Board
rec.arts.drwho.moderated Discussion of "Doctor Who". (Moderated)

Hmm, rec.arts.drwho is the only unmoderated group I know which
could still do with moderation. I didn't realise the moderator
had left, but true nobody's been using it (and I haven't been
reading rec.arts.drwho because of the noise or the discussion
gaps that result from me trying to killfile its sources).

Mind you, I haven't been watching new Dr Who either since it went
off broadcast TV in Australia, so I'm not really a potential user
now.

Post by Big-8 Management Board
rec.arts.movies.reviews Reviews of movies. (Moderated)

Hey, you sure this isn't still working? It's been low traffic for a
long time and with last post from August 2024 I still would've
still thought of it as active (since I'm purely a review reader not
a review writer, it's not my place to try posting).

[noel]

Post by Big-8 Management Board
rec.arts.drwho.moderated Discussion of "Doctor Who". (Moderated)

I didn't realise the moderator had left, but
true nobody's been using it

hard to use a moderated group if nobody's approving posts ;)


I'm still of the belief that lost-moderator groups have moderation flag
unset.

[Marco Moock]

Post by noel

Post by Big-8 Management Board
rec.arts.drwho.moderated Discussion of "Doctor Who".
(Moderated)

I didn't realise the moderator had left, but
true nobody's been using it

hard to use a moderated group if nobody's approving posts ;)
I'm still of the belief that lost-moderator groups have moderation
flag unset.

Am am not an English native speaker, I might misunderstood your
sentence.

Moderated groups will cause the NNTP (actually NNRP) server to send
submissions to the moderation relays that will alias that to the actual
mod address. If the moderation flag is being removed, the submissions
will be directly posted to the group. This would mean a group is then
unmoderated. Such a change needs a control message sent out by the
hierarchy administrator.

[noel]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by noel

Post by Big-8 Management Board
rec.arts.drwho.moderated Discussion of "Doctor Who". (Moderated)

I didn't realise the moderator had left, but
true nobody's been using it

hard to use a moderated group if nobody's approving posts ;)
I'm still of the belief that lost-moderator groups have moderation flag
unset.

Am am not an English native speaker, I might misunderstood your
sentence.

Your English is better then my German :)

Post by Marco Moock
Moderated groups will cause the NNTP (actually NNRP) server to send
submissions to the moderation relays that will alias that to the actual
mod address.

Yes, correct

Post by Marco Moock
If the moderation flag is being removed, the submissions
will be directly posted to the group. This would mean a group is then
unmoderated. Such a change needs a control message sent out by the
hierarchy administrator.

Yes, correct (well unless admins are going to manually modify it, but
thats hardly appropriate since admins may not be aware of the change).


If nobody is moderating the groups, why not unmoderate them instead of
removing them, if they get use, fair enough, if not, there is no harm, no
extra resources used other than a handful of bytes for a one line entry
in active file which already has thousands of unmoderated groups that
haven't been posted to in 10 years anway.

[Ivo Gandolfo]

Post by noel
If nobody is moderating the groups, why not unmoderate them instead of
removing them, if they get use, fair enough, if not, there is no harm, no
extra resources used other than a handful of bytes for a one line entry
in active file which already has thousands of unmoderated groups that
haven't been posted to in 10 years anway.

I think because many servers would not respect the change of group,
either because GPG keys are not updated or for other reasons (I've heard
that this is the main reason since the 90s, as there has never been a
unified coordination between newsmasters, and each newsmaster is free to
do what he wants)

[Marco Moock]

Post by Ivo Gandolfo

Post by noel
If nobody is moderating the groups, why not unmoderate them instead
of removing them, if they get use, fair enough, if not, there is no
harm, no extra resources used other than a handful of bytes for a
one line entry in active file which already has thousands of
unmoderated groups that haven't been posted to in 10 years anway.

I think because many servers would not respect the change of group,
either because GPG keys are not updated or for other reasons (I've
heard that this is the main reason since the 90s, as there has never
been a unified coordination between newsmasters, and each newsmaster
is free to do what he wants)

Most of them handle the control messages as intended, so the group list
is exactly that the hierarchy admins propose, even when technically
everything is possible.

I know that servers exist that don't process them, but why should I
care?

[Julien ÉLIE]

Hi Marco,

I know that servers exist that don't process control articles, but
why should I care?

+1
I believe it is always worthwhile cleaning the newsgroups list. It will
work like a charm for news servers which process control articles, and
people will be happy not to be overwhelmed by a too long list of no
longer relevant newsgroups. And about the ones which do not, it won't
matter much as unused and empty newsgroups will remain unused anyway;
they will just not take benefit of the cleaning.

If by any chance a newsgroup revives on a set of news servers which
still have it, officially recreating it could be an option. When I say
"revive", it means real discussions of several messages in chart from
several people during a few months, and not 2 dumb articles with no
interest.

[noel]

Post by Ivo Gandolfo
I think because many servers would not respect the change of group,
either because GPG keys are not updated or for other reasons (I've heard
that this is the main reason since the 90s, as there has never been a
unified coordination between newsmasters, and each newsmaster is free to
do what he wants)

True, I can make it unmoderated with one quick command, but thats
pointless since all peers would (and should) discard such posts, I dunno,
might try it :)

[Marco Moock]

Post by noel
If nobody is moderating the groups, why not unmoderate them instead
of removing them, if they get use, fair enough, if not, there is no
harm, no extra resources used other than a handful of bytes for a one
line entry in active file which already has thousands of unmoderated
groups that haven't been posted to in 10 years anway.

The group lists are full of unused groups and that makes finding active
groups much harder, so cleaning that up is always a good idea. We are
here to discuss which of the groups might be still relevant and might
be revived.

[noel]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by noel
If nobody is moderating the groups, why not unmoderate them instead of
removing them, if they get use, fair enough, if not, there is no harm,
no extra resources used other than a handful of bytes for a one line
entry in active file which already has thousands of unmoderated groups
that haven't been posted to in 10 years anway.

The group lists are full of unused groups and that makes finding active
groups much harder, so cleaning that up is always a good idea. We are
here to discuss which of the groups might be still relevant and might be
revived.

an extra few hundred is hardly going to mater, especially when of the
53419 "Active" /cough/ groups here, I'd be betting 80% or greater are
inactive, and have for many years.

[Julien ÉLIE]

Hi all,

[Marco]

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock
The group lists are full of unused groups and that makes finding active
groups much harder, so cleaning that up is always a good idea.

I totally agree. Though I also understand the counter arguments about
not cleaning the newsgroups list, I am in favour of reducing the list of
newsgroups to those still relevant today. It is much simpler for people
to find a newsgroup this way, and it is more motivating to post an
article in an active newsgroup.


[noel]

Post by noel
an extra few hundred is hardly going to mater, especially when of the
53419 "Active" /cough/ groups here, I'd be betting 80% or greater are
inactive, and have for many years.

I also agree that the case of unmoderated newsgroup should also be
treated. A Great Cleaning is needed as removing a handful of newsgroups
per trimester will otherwise last a life and does not have any seeable
impact.

[Marco Moock]

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock

Post by noel
If nobody is moderating the groups, why not unmoderate them
instead of removing them, if they get use, fair enough, if not,
there is no harm, no extra resources used other than a handful of
bytes for a one line entry in active file which already has
thousands of unmoderated groups that haven't been posted to in 10
years anway.

The group lists are full of unused groups and that makes finding
active groups much harder, so cleaning that up is always a good
idea. We are here to discuss which of the groups might be still
relevant and might be revived.

an extra few hundred is hardly going to mater, especially when of the
53419 "Active" /cough/ groups here, I'd be betting 80% or greater are
inactive, and have for many years.

I advocate for deleting them. I sometimes go through group lists and
see groups with interesting topics, but all empty. Not a good user
experience, so a cleanup is always a good idea.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock

Post by noel
If nobody is moderating the groups, why not unmoderate them
instead of removing them, if they get use, fair enough, if not,
there is no harm, no extra resources used other than a handful of
bytes for a one line entry in active file which already has
thousands of unmoderated groups that haven't been posted to in 10
years anway.

The group lists are full of unused groups and that makes finding
active groups much harder, so cleaning that up is always a good
idea. We are here to discuss which of the groups might be still
relevant and might be revived.

an extra few hundred is hardly going to mater, especially when of the
53419 "Active" /cough/ groups here, I'd be betting 80% or greater are
inactive, and have for many years.

I advocate for deleting them. I sometimes go through group lists and
see groups with interesting topics, but all empty. Not a good user
experience, so a cleanup is always a good idea.

Well there are things I haven't posted about because I couldn't
find a vaguely relevant group. Cut back the groups and such people
as me will become even less active, while others will start OT
threads in unmoderated groups which can drive regulars away from
the few groups that do still remain active.

[noel]

Post by noel
an extra few hundred is hardly going to mater, especially when of the
53419 "Active" /cough/ groups here, I'd be betting 80% or greater are
inactive, and have for many years.

I advocate for deleting them. I sometimes go through group lists and see
groups with interesting topics, but all empty. Not a good user
experience, so a cleanup is always a good idea.

I certainly hope you're not baseing these inactive groups like you did
with the group Kev mentioned, you saw nothing, for 10 years you said, we
have posts all throughout, sorry Marco, I hardly think you are in an
appropriate position to call an RFD unless you use multiple news servers
(not all fed by same upstreams) to verify the real status of the group, I
know you're new to the big 8 team, so I hope you take that as
constructive advice.

[Marco Moock]

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock

Post by noel
an extra few hundred is hardly going to mater, especially when of
the 53419 "Active" /cough/ groups here, I'd be betting 80% or
greater are inactive, and have for many years.

I advocate for deleting them. I sometimes go through group lists
and see groups with interesting topics, but all empty. Not a good
user experience, so a cleanup is always a good idea.

I certainly hope you're not baseing these inactive groups like you
did with the group Kev mentioned, you saw nothing, for 10 years you
said, we have posts all throughout, sorry Marco, I hardly think you
are in an appropriate position to call an RFD unless you use multiple
news servers (not all fed by same upstreams) to verify the real
status of the group, I know you're new to the big 8 team, so I hope
you take that as constructive advice.

I've checked the alias file for nomod entries and decided to create the
RfD to either fix that or propose the deletion.

As I don't have my own news server, I can't check the spool.
The discussion exists to find such cases and handle them properly. The
next RfD won't include rec.arts.movies.reviews.
I also tried to find older versions of the alias file, but I didn't
find them and the list owner didn't reply to me when I asked.

If there is somebody who can provide statistics, I would appreciate
that.

[noel]

Post by Marco Moock
As I don't have my own news server, I can't check the spool.

Nobody is suggesting you need to operate your own, you only need to
access multiple news servers, you should by now know what public servers
allow anonymous access to read, you are in one of the groups that this
has been discuess several times recently so I wont pollute this group by
listing them here.


Cheers

[Jean-Paul]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by noel
If nobody is moderating the groups, why not unmoderate them instead
of removing them, if they get use, fair enough, if not, there is no
harm, no extra resources used other than a handful of bytes for a one
line entry in active file which already has thousands of unmoderated
groups that haven't been posted to in 10 years anway.

The group lists are full of unused groups and that makes finding active
groups much harder, so cleaning that up is always a good idea. We are
here to discuss which of the groups might be still relevant and might
be revived.

I totally agree

[Christian Schumacher]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by noel
If nobody is moderating the groups, why not unmoderate them instead
of removing them, if they get use, fair enough, if not, there is no
harm, no extra resources used other than a handful of bytes for a one
line entry in active file which already has thousands of unmoderated
groups that haven't been posted to in 10 years anway.

I second that.

Post by Marco Moock
The group lists are full of unused groups and that makes finding active
groups much harder, so cleaning that up is always a good idea.

I'm looking for newsgroups by name, not by traffic.

[noel]

Post by Christian Schumacher

Post by noel
If nobody is moderating the groups, why not unmoderate them instead of
removing them, if they get use, fair enough, if not, there is no harm,
no extra resources used other than a handful of bytes for a one line
entry in active file which already has thousands of unmoderated groups
that haven't been posted to in 10 years anway.

I second that.

Wouldn't be too worried, it doesn't look like many servers have honoured
the rmgroup command anyway, I use a perl script I wrote 20 years ago to
debug propagation for when someone claimed a post didnt get out, I
checked the 3 groups, but of the 9 other servers other than ours that it
tests against, only eternal september returned 411 (no such group) for
all 3, all other servers returned 211 (success), so it seems Marco's
personal crusade agaisnt usenet isn't exactly having the effect he
wanted, and would have been better off sending newgroup which should
remove the moderation flag, servers are more likely to honor them.

That's not to say other news servers, in particular the closed,
posting_registration_reqd and paid servers have not honored the rmgroups,
as I obviously can't test them, nor all open read access servers.

Tested: rec.arts.comics.info / rec.radio.broadcasting /
rec.arts.comics.reviews

[Marco Moock]

Post by noel
That's not to say other news servers, in particular the closed,
posting_registration_reqd and paid servers have not honored the
rmgroups, as I obviously can't test them, nor all open read access
servers.
Tested: rec.arts.comics.info / rec.radio.broadcasting /
rec.arts.comics.reviews

Can you give the names of the servers that didn't process the messages?

There was some discussion about verification failure for those
messages, so there might be a technical issue.

[noel]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by noel
That's not to say other news servers, in particular the closed,
posting_registration_reqd and paid servers have not honored the
rmgroups, as I obviously can't test them, nor all open read access
servers.
Tested: rec.arts.comics.info / rec.radio.broadcasting /
rec.arts.comics.reviews

Can you give the names of the servers that didn't process the messages?

What, so you can use it as a backdoor method to have them remove the
groups? Did you consider that I'm not the only server operator who
disagrees with the way you are handling this and have set control
rmgroups for big8 to Log/Email only?

We've already seen groups with recent articles you cant see because your
server has no articles that you want to get rid of, and its not our job
to check and dispute every group, its the big8 board members job to use
multiple sources to verify these things.

if it is a groupname foo dot moderated - then fair enough, but anything
else, I made my position clear on, just unmoderate them, you chose not to
and issued rmgroup cmsg's.

There are not too many known open access servers around so its not hard
to see who thy are, my script has no logins to provate servers, it can
see what anyone else can.

Post by Marco Moock
There was some discussion about verification failure for those messages,
so there might be a technical issue.

uhu. Or they disagree with the decisions being made.

[Marco Moock]

Post by Computer Nerd Kev

Post by Big-8 Management Board
REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the
following 101 moderated newsgroups.
Currently, those groups cannot be used for discussion because of the
lack of a moderator. Most of those groups haven't had a moderator
for a long time and have been unused for years.

How are you determining "haven't had a moderator for a long time"?

I think that was a relict when I had the idea to consult old mod
address alias files, but didn't find some.

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
At least rec.arts.movies.reviews hasn't been "unused for years".

Do you see a change to revive that, either by finding a new mod or
changing it to unmoderated?

Post by Computer Nerd Kev

Post by Big-8 Management Board
rec.arts.drwho.moderated Discussion of "Doctor Who".
(Moderated)

Hmm, rec.arts.drwho is the only unmoderated group I know which
could still do with moderation. I didn't realise the moderator
had left, but true nobody's been using it (and I haven't been
reading rec.arts.drwho because of the noise or the discussion
gaps that result from me trying to killfile its sources).
Mind you, I haven't been watching new Dr Who either since it went
off broadcast TV in Australia, so I'm not really a potential user
now.

Post by Big-8 Management Board
rec.arts.movies.reviews Reviews of movies. (Moderated)

Hey, you sure this isn't still working? It's been low traffic for a
long time and with last post from August 2024 I still would've
still thought of it as active (since I'm purely a review reader not
a review writer, it's not my place to try posting).

rec-arts-movies-reviews: mod-bounce.no-mod-***@isc.org

This is the current state in the aliases file, so currently no mod
exist and the group can't be used.

https://rec.arts.movies.reviews.narkive.com/
Last post is more than 10 years ago.

[noel]

This is the current state in the aliases file, so currently no mod exist
and the group can't be used.
https://rec.arts.movies.reviews.narkive.com/
Last post is more than 10 years ago.

Ummmm, no, I have posts here from 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2018, and
all way down to 2013.

Approved: rec-arts-movies-reviews-***@robomod.net
was injected by giganews and most recent Aug 9 2024, previous was July 29
2024, It's not a heavily used group by looks of it, but is sporadicly
active.

[Marco Moock]

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock
This is the current state in the aliases file, so currently no mod
exist and the group can't be used.
https://rec.arts.movies.reviews.narkive.com/
Last post is more than 10 years ago.

Ummmm, no, I have posts here from 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2018,
and all way down to 2013.
was injected by giganews and most recent Aug 9 2024, previous was
July 29 2024, It's not a heavily used group by looks of it, but is
sporadicly active.

Can you give message-IDs, please?
I would like to investigate that.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock
This is the current state in the aliases file, so currently no mod
exist and the group can't be used.
https://rec.arts.movies.reviews.narkive.com/
Last post is more than 10 years ago.

Ummmm, no, I have posts here from 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2018,
and all way down to 2013.
was injected by giganews and most recent Aug 9 2024, previous was
July 29 2024, It's not a heavily used group by looks of it, but is
sporadicly active.

Can you give message-IDs, please?
I would like to investigate that.

Then just tune in to any half-decent news server instead of some
clumsy web interface. Posts from recent years can be found on
freenews.netfront.net and paganini.bofh.team as well as
news.ausics.net and the al.howardknight.net web archive:

http://al.howardknight.net/?ID=172445858100

[Marco Moock]

Post by Computer Nerd Kev

Post by Marco Moock

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock
This is the current state in the aliases file, so currently no
mod exist and the group can't be used.
https://rec.arts.movies.reviews.narkive.com/
Last post is more than 10 years ago.

Ummmm, no, I have posts here from 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020,
2018, and all way down to 2013.
was injected by giganews and most recent Aug 9 2024, previous was
July 29 2024, It's not a heavily used group by looks of it, but is
sporadicly active.

Can you give message-IDs, please?
I would like to investigate that.

Then just tune in to any half-decent news server instead of some
clumsy web interface. Posts from recent years can be found on
freenews.netfront.net and paganini.bofh.team as well as
http://al.howardknight.net/?ID=172445858100

Thanks for the details.

Approved: rec-arts-movies-reviews-***@robomod.net

I will try to contact the person behind that to make the group working
again.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
At least rec.arts.movies.reviews hasn't been "unused for years".

Do you see a change to revive that, either by finding a new mod or
changing it to unmoderated?

I see a chance to revive it, it was obviously seeing use until the
moderation apparantly failed sometime in the last six months.

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Computer Nerd Kev

Post by Big-8 Management Board
rec.arts.movies.reviews Reviews of movies. (Moderated)

Hey, you sure this isn't still working? It's been low traffic for a
long time and with last post from August 2024 I still would've
still thought of it as active (since I'm purely a review reader not
a review writer, it's not my place to try posting).

This is the current state in the aliases file, so currently no mod
exist and the group can't be used.
Subject: The Clogging
Date: Fri, 09 Aug 2024 14:45:20 -0400

Includes header:
Approved: rec-arts-movies-reviews-***@robomod.net

So if that "robomod" isn't working anymore it must be a recent
failure. It ought to get a chance at being fixed, not deleted
within six months.

Post by Marco Moock
https://rec.arts.movies.reviews.narkive.com/
Last post is more than 10 years ago.

Must be a glitch at that website, I see hundreds of posts after the
latest one shown there. Oversights like this are a good case for
not doing mass-deletion RFDs.

[Julius Bernotas]

Hello. I think a group should be deleted if one can reasonably say that the
group has ceased to fullfill its purpose when being a separate group of its own.
Also the task of moderation is hard when there are many groups and only a few moderators.
Usenets user base has shrunk since the golden age of usenet in the 90s. I think
it's logical that the number of usenet groups should shrink as well. So
concerning the deletion of the 101 moderated newsgroups, from me it's a clear
go!

[Paul W. Schleck]

Greetings.

Post by Big-8 Management Board
REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the following
101 moderated newsgroups.

The audience for potential moderators of these specific newsgroups is
not to be found here in news.groups.

Post by Big-8 Management Board
news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
news.groups
[...]

Brilliant stuff there, Way to literally go behind everybody's back.

Where do you suggest we post the RFD, then?
Should we cross-post the RFD to all of the affected groups? I doubt our
own news server would accept such an article, and others might also
reject it for excessive cross-posting. But maybe I am wrong.
Should we post a separate copy of the RFD to each of the affected
groups? Again, I'm worried this might trigger some automated
spam/flooding filters. But again, maybe I am wrong about this.
Besides the affected groups, is there a better place to reach an
audience of potential moderators?

One technique that was used for another mass-removal RFD in 2011 was to
make a short pointer post crossposted to small groups of the affected
newsgroups, usually four newsgroups at a time (Panix will allow
simultaneous crossposting to up to 8 different newsgroups), with body
text customized to each group of newsgroups, to avoid news server
filtering on large numbers of exact duplicate articles. This is well
within Breidbart Index limits followed by most news servers. Usually
the newsgroups were combined by subhierarchy (e.g., rec.arts.*,
rec.games.*, rec.games.computer.quake.*, etc.). An example of such a
short, crossposted pointer message may be found at:

https://groups.google.com/g/rec.games.trading-cards.startrek/c/00vYFmLltv0/m/o88IiT3WmEwJ

The current RFD encompasses about 100 newsgroups. Sending pointer
messages with different sublists of the affected newsgroups, crossposted
to about 4 to 8 newsgroups each, would be about 15 to 25 messages. A
lot, but not unmanageable, especially if the messages were templated,
possibly generated by a script. Since this latest RFD affects moderated
newsgroups, an Approved: header would have to be added, of course.
There is ample precedent for the Board to post directly to inactive
moderated newsgroups, most recently with rec.radio.broadcasting.

[v***@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com]

I'm against moderated or curated anything, I can use killfiles

but I still use MAthematica, so maybe it can be unmoderated

[Marco Moock]

Post by v***@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com
but I still use MAthematica, so maybe it can be unmoderated

Defunct for more that 10 years. Do you know that people still want to
use it?

If so, we might change that to unmoderated.

[Dan Cross]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by v***@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com
but I still use MAthematica, so maybe it can be unmoderated

Defunct for more that 10 years. Do you know that people still want to
use it?
If so, we might change that to unmoderated.

It strikes me that many of these groups probably became
moderated during the very awkward period while USENET was still
very popular and spam was uncontrolled.

The situation is different now, however, so I suspect that for
some of them (perhaps many) switching to unmoderated would be
fine.

- Dan C.